Fallon Finally Opens Up About His Trump Interview—and That Hair Ruffle

As the late-night parade of Trump jokes marches on, Jimmy Fallon hasn’t quite been left in the dust—but he’s certainly not the bandleader anymore. The Tonight Show host has seen a decline in his influence ever since he glad-handed Donald Trump last September, capping off a particularly breezy interview by ruffling the then Republican nominee’s hair. The moment drew instant criticism, and has dogged him ever since—especially as Stephen Colbert has been pummeling Fallon week after week in total viewership. Fallon has stayed largely silent on the controversy that erupted last fall, give or take a sly S.N.L. reference or two—but as Trump’s presidency continues to flounder and Colbert comes for the NBC host’s coveted ownership of the key 18 to 49 demographic, Fallon has finally opened up about the moment—and his biggest regrets.

“I didn’t do it to humanize him,” Fallon told The New York Times of ruffling Trump’s hair. “I almost did it to minimize him. I didn’t think that would be a compliment: ‘He did the thing that we all wanted to do.’”

Regardless of his intention, critics accused Fallon of being too charitable to Trump, who at that point in his candidacy had made a variety of offensive comments about many different groups of people. The miscalculation was rendered in even sharper relief by Trump’s surprise victory: watching Fallon’s interview now, it’s easy to forget how convinced a good portion of the country was at the time that Trump stood no chance of winning. As Tonight executive producer Lorne Michaels put it, “I don’t think anybody was focused on him winning, or that possibility. It had been absolute, bedrock certainty that Hillary Clinton was winning that election. There was no doubt, certainly in the news department in our building.”

As the controversy erupted, a crestfallen Fallon found himself in a position he hated: he had disappointed people.

“I go, I just can’t read Twitter,” Fallon told the Times. “Then I can’t read the news. I can’t read the Internet.”

“I’m a people pleaser,” Fallon added. “If there’s one bad thing on Twitter about me, it will make me upset. So, after this happened, I was devastated. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just trying to have fun.”

As multiple sources noted to the Times, Fallon’s late-night show has a time-honored tradition of presenting nonpartisan fun that dates back at least to Johnny Carson. It’s not the Tonight Show way to go on an extended, rage-fueled rant against any politician. Yet that sort of polarized humor is what sells these days, which leaves Fallon in a difficult position. His proposed solution is to ride out the Trump wave, and stay true to his center-of-the-aisle sensibility. But the host does have one big regret about the whole debacle: he never talked about it, apart from a drive-by quote to TMZ, in which Fallon rhetorically asked his critics, “Have you seen my show?”

Now, though, Fallon views that decision as a mistake, and a missed opportunity to address a disappointed viewership. “I feel like it’s sailed,” he told the Times. “I haven’t talked about it at all.”